Austrian Tour Diary: Day Two

Yesterday, we mentioned meeting the new boy, and it was quite a day for Lukas Jutkiewicz, who completed his move to Burnley from Middlesbrough before jetting out to meet his new team mates.

An indirect flight was the quickest way of hitting camp, and that meant a breakneck transfer across Frankfurt Airport – one of Europe’s busiest hubs – to make the connecting flight to Vienna.

That was his first training session!

The second came within two hours of arriving on site, when a quick change saw him meet the squad for the first time on the coach to training!

Suffice to say, ‘Juke’ slept like a log last night!

WHAT A PICTURE 1

Readers of yesterday’s diary will know that Arsenal decamp to this gorgeous Styrian location each year. The Gunners are due to arrive in around 10 days to use the same football facilities on offer to the Clarets.

And the Thermenstadion Bad Waltersdorf is certainly a busy hub itself for European clubs looking to ramp up their pre-season. A ‘wall of fame’ in the corridors of the compact stadium proudly display these annual visitors, including photos of the Israeli and Canadian national sides, German outfits Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern, in addition to English club such as Leicester City, West Ham United, West Bromwich Albion and Blackburn Rovers. There’s even a picture of Head of Sports Science Mark Howard with the 2012 Rovers squad which, rest assured, was commented upon!

As for the Clarets, Tuesday night saw the group gather ahead of dinner for a photo that will join this pantheon of clubs on display. We’ve even offered to supply them with an accompanying Premier League logo!

WHAT A PICTURE 2

A reminder that we have now added another arm to our social media with the launch of our Instagram account. We’ll be posting regular pictures from behind the scenes, here in Austria and back home, following many requests from fans. Our Instagram account can be found at http://instagram.com/burnleyofficial. Why not give us a follow?

ON YER BIKE

Forfeits add a competitive edge to daily training, with losing ‘teams’ in a variety of football-based challenges having to suffer a punishment.

For Kieran Trippier, Ben Mee, Ross Wallace, Kevin Long and Alex Cisak, that meant a bike ride back uphill to the team hotel following the second session. They duly set off at a pace ahead of the coach, with suspicions that something was up. Sure enough, when the coach caught up, the cyclists formed a thou-shalt-not-pass human barrier, meaning we were forced to travel at their suspiciously leisurely pace for the majority of the journey! Boys will be boys!